so i have a pretty vanilla install of 5.666 Bento (with maybe an extra plugin or two, like TT's ALAC enc) but i have my install custom configured at this point and don't really want to start from scratch; so i am going to DL and install the 5.8 3660 official ver on top of the existing install.

i forget at this point if i am still using or not the in_mp3 plugin beta that Aminifu comically scolded me for continuing to use, but it doesn't really matter bc whatever is in 5.8 should fix whatever issues were present in both the 5.666 patched ver and the beta ver i was so illicitly using, and if it doesn't, that's something i will want to know and file a bug report on.

so, i went to the plugins directory, and added .old as the filename extension to the following plugins:

enc_lame.dll
gen_jumpex.dll (DrO's JTFE plugin i believe. if i want it after 5.8 i bet it will still work and all i have to do is remove the .old ...i'm assuming 5.8 removes/deletes this otherwise, but maybe not?)
in_mp3.dll
lame_enc.dll

again, not sure if installing 5.8 over top would remove these or not, but i assume adding the .old extension will protect them. not sure if i should be protecting any other 5.666 plugins or files, but i don't think so, although i'd be interested to hear if anyone else does, which ones, and why?

so i now have a 5.8 3660 install, and first impression is it seems snappier and looks a lil better, and both things are likely just figments of my imagination, ha. but it is acting and running smoothly so far.

all the files i marked .old are still there with the .old extension.

as expected, no new gen_jumpex.dll was installed (DrO's JTFE).

there is a new enc_lame.dll file and a new in_mp3.dll file.

there is a new lame_enc.dll, but it is now in the "winamp\shared" subfolder, instead of the plugins subfolder.

at this point, i forget why i had a lame_enc.dll, (or even if it came with an older winamp or if i put it there) and/or how it differs from the enc_lame.dll file winamp 5.8 does put there. but i still have my old one if i find out later i need it.

also, i think you can DL these lame dlls with the lame.exe utility on some different sites. again, i don't know if i need to do any of that, or what would be advisable to do, for the sake of encoding to mp3 with winamp. i might try ripping to mp3 later. but you can playback mp3 on winamp np without this 3rd party stuff. still, maybe those 3rd party lame downloads would have better, more up to date dlls for both encoding and playback, but i'm just thinking out loud, idk.

i like that all the "pro" stuff is now removed, thats sweet. and while i wish it had some autotagging ability, at least now it doesn't load gracenote plugins that don't work.

anyway, at this point in time, i don't see any reason why someone shouldn't install 5.8 3660

anyway, at this point in time, i don't see any reason why someone shouldn't install 5.8 3660

The reason I'm not going to bother with Winamp 5.8 is because I believe the desktop version is a lame duck: dead in the water.
Radionomy says: "A leaked version of Winamp 5.8 recently spread over the Internet. Consequently, we have decided to make this new version available to you, revised by us." and "This version is not an ongoing project but be sure that we are currently working hard on a future new Winamp."
Heard it all before.

But you're right: give it a whirl if you want, there's no harm.
Maybe I'll try DrO's version, although that is also taking a long time. Meanwhile, I like 5.666.

-idk if this is an improvement or a regression? or is it a push? is mpg123, better, worse, or the same? i would love to know if there is a general consensus on this? i could revert i think b/c i have those .old marked files, right?

-i guess libpng might matter to me if it is also the same file that handles jpegs.

MISSING from the changelog is the removal of Gracenote / autotagging files / plugins that no longer worked, which is a plus since it doesn't work.

so i bolded whats compelling to me personally and put some notes why, and as this is an official release, i guess i don't understand the blah attitude... it may be a bit underwhelming overall and it may be a bad sign for future development (i hope not), but its still imo a worthy version to update an existing install to.

i never understood why someone would post in the forums a bug or problem, but then go on to report they were using 5.581 instead of 5.666? i always use the newest b/c if the ver of winamp i use has a problem, it will only get looked at and fixed if i report it to the devs on the current official release.

Good writeup. I played around with it in a VM a little bit but nothing as extensive as you. I am not sure if I am going to install it over 5.666 only because
1-It being beta, especially a beta that has the same date as a the release date after so long of silence (doesn't feel right)
2-I might install wacup later (might as well since i'm already donating)
3-no issues like you have experienced in terms of crashing. 5.666 is stable to me *knocks on wood*

(┛◉Д◉)┛彡ʎɯouoıpɐɹ

Current status of Winamp 5.8: Beta released, the last desktop version get wacup

3-no issues like you have experienced in terms of crashing. 5.666 is stable to me *knocks on wood*

i just want to clarify that winamp crashing on me was VERY rare in 5.666, which i considered very stable. i assume 5.8 will be even more stable.

i did have some issues with scans, esp with some bad mp3s/tags that were themselves problematic and buggy. i think 5.8 has solved that. but even in the rare cases 5.666 did crash, the real culprit was the bad mp3s imo... i just feel like this 5.8 has since hardened itself against that scenario should i encounter it again.

prior to 5.666 winamp had some DB handling issues where the DB could corrupt pretty easy fairly often (or at least, often enough), but those issues and issues of winamp saving the DB multiple times when only once was called for, (thus also increasing corruption chances), were more or less solved for us all i believe a version or two prior to 5.666

i am just very keen on stability, b/c i have a radio background, and b/c it really sucks to have it crash any time, ever, be it in my car, on my TV/Stereo, or my laptop, alone or even worse, entertaining.

i am keeping an eye on what DrO is doing, a lot of it looks impressive, and it will beg the question of what can be ported to what? (unofficially speaking)

.....i never understood why someone would post in the forums a bug or problem, but then go on to report they were using 5.581 instead of 5.666? i always use the newest b/c if the ver of winamp i use has a problem, it will only get looked at and fixed if i report it to the devs on the current official release....

I agree. My days of reporting bugs and problems are finished.
Let's see how (or if) the "Development Team" responds to those who raise issues with 5.8 Beta.

i am happy to say that even when u deactivate video in prefs, winamp will still play the audio from a video file. thats very good imo. in any case, i bit the bullet and converted the vids to mp3 anyway, using VLC, so i can tag em proper for the ML.

i have tried to use format converter a few times, and frankly its weird. i tried to convert a 10sec video mpg to mp3, and it flat out failed, (with or without video on in prefs). i also tried to convert some (albeit odd) FLACs and a lot of the mp3 options were subdued, and the resulting file did not conform with the options picked, (like a CBR of 192). i don't really use winamp for converting anything to mp3, or ripping CDs to mp3, so can't say it bothers me much. (i do use it to convert FLAC to ALAC, using ThinkTinks excellent plugin, and that works great, although i need to see if all the tag values xfer)

i have been using 5.8 a lot since i installed it, and i would say it is more responsive and quicker, and opens and closes faster. no benchmarks or anything, but it just feels that way. i could probably add an .old extension to some plugins i'm never gonna use (like e.g. the portables, etc) and get it even lighter weight.

i am just very keen on stability, b/c i have a radio background, and b/c it really sucks to have it crash any time, ever, be it in my car, on my TV/Stereo, or my laptop, alone or even worse, entertaining.

agreed, and this is from a guy who drives a 2014 mustang with ford sync that crashes constantly. Annoying as hell.

(┛◉Д◉)┛彡ʎɯouoıpɐɹ

Current status of Winamp 5.8: Beta released, the last desktop version get wacup

i just want to clarify that winamp crashing on me was VERY rare in 5.666, which i considered very stable. i assume 5.8 will be even more stable.

i did have some issues with scans, esp with some bad mp3s/tags that were themselves problematic and buggy. i think 5.8 has solved that. but even in the rare cases 5.666 did crash, the real culprit was the bad mp3s imo... i just feel like this 5.8 has since hardened itself against that scenario should i encounter it again.

prior to 5.666 winamp had some DB handling issues where the DB could corrupt pretty easy fairly often (or at least, often enough), but those issues and issues of winamp saving the DB multiple times when only once was called for, (thus also increasing corruption chances), were more or less solved for us all i believe a version or two prior to 5.666

i am just very keen on stability, b/c i have a radio background, and b/c it really sucks to have it crash any time, ever, be it in my car, on my TV/Stereo, or my laptop, alone or even worse, entertaining.

i am keeping an eye on what DrO is doing, a lot of it looks impressive, and it will beg the question of what can be ported to what? (unofficially speaking)

Honestly, in Windows XP SP3, Winamp 5.8 beta is still solid, but as you said, it's quicker than 5.666. I'm not even tested the CD ripping with mp3 files, but I noticed that now I can directly manage the URL of the online services, stuff that honestly I appreciate too much.

i setup winamp on a second system and this time had a problem i didn't have the first time. basically all the filetypes that had been correctly associated with winamp previously, were now set to other apps, like VLC, even audiotypes.

it was a minor pain to set it back, i had to go to settings > default apps > set defaults by app (at the bottom of the screen) b/c winamp was not recognized anywhere else, and it couldn't seemingly be done from within winamp either, or en masse, each extension set manually.

winamp also is not reporting its install size to the installed apps list.

[OT: having a similar issue with mp3tag, as there is now a windows store version, but if u install it, it seems to run concurrent, not overwriting the existing install, and if u uninstall the older ver manually, u might lose your mp3tag windows context menu items as i did]

I mean, that's what my posts in this thread are about. Having now used 5.8 quite a bit, I think it's a completely worthwhile upgrade, with lots of small positive changes that add up to a better user exp overall. I think it's quicker and more stable, and leaner. Hopefully Benski et al can get some autotagging in there, and maybe R128, and address some of the quirks reported, but for me and my usage I would not continue to use 5.666 anywhere.

i just want to clarify that winamp crashing on me was VERY rare in 5.666, which i considered very stable. i assume 5.8 will be even more stable.
[...]

I could not recall problems with Winamp 5.666 crashing- until it started to happen something like a year or half a year before. But is happens so rarely that I do not bother with this, because whatever is the root cause it must be something outside of Winamp - or Winamp cannot handle my every growing ATF code anymore

As for switching to 5.8- when I will have to switch to Windows 10 then I will probably try it out. And I will be switching to Windows 10 after buying new hardware- which will be few months after Windows 7 will be no longer supported

I just do not like wasting time and energy on some hypothetical improvements when what I already have is still working good enough. I prefer spending this time on things like listening to music o sleeping

Ok, so I want to clarify something I find confused in the release notes, and also something I believe I was wrong about.

5.8 does not include JTFE and unicodetaskbar fix plugins on new, fresh installs. That is clear. However, if u have an existing install of winamp, 5.666 or below, and u have those 2 plugins, the installer will remove / delete the unicodetaskbarfix, but it will IGNORE the existing JTFE plugin, leaving it in place and operational.

I previously thought the installer removed both.

I am more and more convinced every day that 5.8 is a worthy upgrade.

Btw, I realize a few people still use AAC, but i think no one has commented bc it isn't popular, and bc it persists on upgrade installs. Is there really a reason to encode lossy to anything other than mp3?

I guess my point would be that storage space / costs / constraints aren't a concern anymore. Given that, I doubt most people could tell a 160kbps or above mp3 from a AAC file. Most listening situations are less than perfect, either hardware, environment, or both. Also, mp3 is so universal. So why bother with AAC? Plus, AAC is itself confused, with the different types of it as Egg points out.

To be clear, I think winamp should support it to whatever extent is possible, that's not the issue. I just can't see why anyone would want to encode a CD or whatever to AAC instead of mp3. Anyway, I think all of that is why Egg hadn't seen any AAC comments yet.

with limited bandwidth you can stream in 48 kbps AAC and have a decent amount of listeners while a 128/160 or 192 kbps mp3 stream would leave a radio station or internet stream with just a handfull of listeners
and the prices of streaming hosts go up with bandwith.

I really appreciate reading the reviews and tips. Since its inception, Winamp has always been my faithful music player. I will now install 5.8 to my windows 7's & 10. I hope it will continue to whip the llamas butt for the next decade. I tip my hat to all involved.

So in the time since these posts, other threads have popped up regarding crashes, mainly when doing scans of ur audio files.

I personally have had no such problems yet, but it seems others have, and that's disappointing. Basically, the issue is usually a bad file in some way, be it the tag, file header, etc. Winamp then handles the bad file poorly by crashing.

These are not new issues. They existed in 5.666 and prior; 5.8 was supposed to fix them once and for all. It seems that hasn't happened.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

If Winamp ever crashes on you while scanning, go to watch folders in prefs, and generally u can see the file it stops on during a scan. Copy the bad files and upload them so the Devs can reproduce and fix the issue. Then fix the originals using mp3val or similar utilities.